Free Peaches for Monsieur Le Curé by Joanne Harris

rattle.
    Someone called out in Arabic. The child protested. A girl in a dark-blue kaftan came out. The child left the cane by the side of the road and followed the girl into the house. I wandered into Les Marauds, heading for the river. The bridge that links Les Marauds to the rest of Lansquenet stands at a kind of crossroads; this is where the tanneries stood, and where the village mosque now stands. On both sides, the walls of the old bastide remain, broken in places, a reminder to would-be intruders that Lansquenet protects its own.
    The bridge is stone; rather low, the river dividing the village in two, like the halves of a sliced fruit. In winter, after the rain, the Tannes runs too high for any but the flattest of boats to pass. In autumn, if the summer has been especially hot, the river sometimes almost dries up, leaving banks of gritty sand divided by sparse rivulets. Just now, the river is perfect. Perfect for swimming; perfect for boats.
    That made me wonder once again why Roux chose not to come. He spent four years in Lansquenet after Anouk and I left. So why would he stay in Paris now, loving the countryside as he does? Why has he chosen to stay on the Seine, when the Tannes is so inviting? And I know Rosette misses him – Anouk and I miss him too, of course, but Rosette misses him in a special way, a way that the two of us don’t understand. Of course, she still has Bam – who, in Roux’s absence, has made his presence more than usually apparent; sitting on a stool by Anouk, his tail a gleaming question mark in the yellow lamplight.
    Oh Roux, why didn’t you come?
    Roux dislikes technology; but I managed to persuade him to carry – if not to actually use – a mobile phone. I tried it now, but predictably it was turned off. I sent a text:
    Arrived safely. Staying in Armande’s old house. Everything fine, but some changes. May have to stay a few more days. We miss you. Lots of love, Vx
    The act of sending a message home made Roux seem all the more distant. Home. Is it my home now? I looked across at Lansquenet; its little lights; its crooked streets; the church tower, white in the dusk. Across the bridge, the darker half; the streets lit only by house lights; the shadowy spike of the minaret, topped with its silver crescent, challenging the church tower that stands like an upraised fist in the square.
    For a while I had thought that this was my home; that I might stay in Lansquenet. Even now, the word home still conjures up that little shop, the rooms above the chocolaterie ; Anouk’s bedroom in the loft, with its porthole window. And now I feel divided in a way I never was; half of me belongs with Roux; the other, here in Lansquenet. Perhaps because the village itself is now divided between two worlds; one new and multicultural, one as conservative as only the rural French can be, and I understand it perfectly—
    What am I doing here? I thought. Why have I opened this box of uncertainties? Armande’s letter clearly said that someone in Lansquenet needed help. But who is that person? Francis Reynaud? The Woman in Black? Joséphine? Myself, perhaps?
    My path had taken me past the house from which the girl in the dark blue kaftan had come. The stick with the captive beetle was lying by the side of the road. I liberated the beetle, which buzzed at me crossly before flying off, and paused to look at the dwelling.
    Like most of the houses in Les Marauds, it was a low-roofed, two-storey building, part wood, part yellow brick. It looked to be made from two houses that had been knocked together; the door and the shutters were painted green, and there were window boxes on the sills in which red geraniums were growing. From inside, I could hear voices; laughter; conversation. I could smell cooking, spices and mint. As I passed, the door opened again and the little girl in the yellow kameez dashed out into the street. She stopped as she saw me and stared, bright-eyed; I guessed her to be five or six, too young to be